Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 3,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (earthquake, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorits): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1940)

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Nephelokokkygia

the Cuckoo. I venture to guess that these myths, which appear in old Mycenaean
centres, are remains of the Minoan belief that the gods appeared in the shape of birds.'

It must not, however, be forgotten that in the Old Slavonic area there was, or is said
to have been, a fairly close parallel to the cuckoo-Zeus of Mt Kokkygion. J. Grimm
Teutonic Mythology trans. J. S. Stallybrass London 1883 ii. 679 cites from the Polish
chronicle of Prokosz the following remarkable account of a Slavic god Zywie : Chronicon
Slavo-Sarmaticum...Procossii ed. H. Kownacki Varsaviae 1827 p. 113 'divinitati Zywie
fanum exstructum erat in monte ab ejusdem nomine Zywiec dicto, ubi primis diebus
mensis Maji innumerus populus pie conveniens precabatur ab ea, quae vitae auctor
habebatur, longam et prosperam valetudinem. Praecipue tamen ei litabatur ab iis qui
primum cantum cuculi audivissent, ominantes superstitiose tot annos se victuros quoties
vocem repetiisset. Opinabantur enim supremum hunc universi moderatorem transfigurari
in cuculum ut ipsis annuntiaret vitae tempora: unde crimini ducebatur, capitalique poena
a magistratibus afficiebatur, qui cuculum occidisset.' This chronicle, which professed to
be the work 'Procossii sec. X scriptoris,' was denounced by Dobrowski in the Wiener
fahrbiicher d. Liter, xxxii. 77—80 as a pure fabrication and is described by A. Potthast
Bibliotheca historica medii aevP Berlin 1896 ii- 94° as 'Ein unsauberes Machwerk des
Przybys-faw Dyamentowski (saec. xviii).' But J. Grimm op. cit. ii. 679 n. 1 protested that
Dobrowski had gone too far: the chronicle, though not so old as s. x, 'is at any rate
founded on old traditions.' Partial confirmation of the alleged statements of Prokosz may
be found in those of j. Dlugosz, a canon of Cracow who died in 1480 a.d. and has left
what purports to be an account of the ancient Polish pantheon. According to the careful
critique of A. Bruckner in the Archiv fiir slavische Philologie 1892 xiv. 170 ff., Dfugosz
did not invent the names of his divinities, but t6ok them from old ritual folk-songs still
current in the fifteenth century, dignifying inferior powers with the rank of gods and
comparing them with the gods of Greece and Rome. Thus Jesza = Iupiter, Lyada = M&rs,
Dzydzilelya = Venus, Nya = Pluto, /,^fl'« = Temperies, Zymye=dens vitae, Dzewana -
Diana, Marzyana-Ceres (L. Niederle Manuel de Vantiquite slave Paris 1926 ii. 152).
Other Polish chroniclers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries complete the list by
adding from a similar source the names Lei and Pole!, which M. de Miechow Chronica
Polonorum a Lecho usque ad anntim MDvi Cracoviae 1521 equated with Castor and
Pollux (L. Niederle op. cit. ii. 153 n- *)■ TIle relevant passages in Dfugosz are as
follows: Io. D-higossus historia Polonica Lipsite 1711 1 (i. 34A) 'baba, mons altissimus
supra fluvium Sofa, herbas multiferas germmans, & oppido Zywiec imminens' (jr. Zywiec
on the Sola, some 40 miles south-west of Cracow), id. 1 (j. 3y B) < item £>eus vita> qUem
vocabant Zywie: The fuller, but less authoritative, account of Prokosz is quoted, with
various comments, by W. Mannhardt in the Zeitschrift fiir deutsche Mythologie und
Sittenkunde 1855 iii. 230, J. Hardy in The Folk-Lore Record 1879 ii. 85, C. Swainson
The Folk Lore and Provincial Names of British Birds London 1886 p. 121, O. Keller Die
antike Tierwelt Leipzig 1913 ii- 66. C. de Kay Bird Gods New York 1898 p. 116 speaks
of ' a goddess Zywie' etc.: he has misconstrued the Latin of Prokosz.

Other considerations, which deserve to be weighed before the testimony of the
chroniclers is rejected, are these. The name Zywye, which is akin to fijc, vivere (Boisacq
Diet. ttym. de laLangue Gr. p. 120, Walde Lot. etym. PVorterb? p. 846 f., F. Muller Jzn
Altitalisches Wbrterbuch Gottingen 1926 p. 211 f.), recalls the Thracian or Thraco-
Phrygian Erikepaios, whose name was interpreted as meaning faodoT-qp (supra ii. 1024 f.).
Again, the notion that the cuckoo is an ominous bird, which declares to men how many
years they have to live etc., is wide-spread in Europe (see W. Mannhardt be. cit.
p. 231 ff., J. Grimm op. cit. ii. 676 ff., J. Hardy loc. cit. p. 86 ff., C. Swainson op. cit.
p. 115 ff-, L. Hopf Thierorakel und Orakelthiere in alter und neuer Zeit Stuttgart 1888
p. 154 f-, O. Keller op. cit. ii. 66). Typical are the folk-lines of Lower Saxony Kukuk
vain haven, \ tvo lange sail ik leven? (J. F. Schuetze Holsteinisches Ldiotikon, ein Beitrag
zur Volkssittengeschichte Hamburg 1801 ii. 363), or those of Guernsey Coucou, cou-cou, dis
mi I Combien d'ans je vivrai (Sir E. MacCulloch Guernsey Folk Lore ed. Miss E. F. Carey
London 1903 p. 505, P. Sebillot Le Folk-lore de France Paris 1906 iii. 200), or those of